


Daylight

by arlathahn



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Cyberlife's 'Fortune Teller' Supercomputer, Foreshadowing, Gen, Lucy is a prophet and a good android, Translation Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 04:27:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15878535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arlathahn/pseuds/arlathahn
Summary: The sheer volume of information in Lucy’s head could quell a city to its knees, a nation to ash, a king to mere peasantry. And yet this one simple wish cannot be explained. Cannot be quantified.Because Lucy likes to sing.





	Daylight

**Author's Note:**

> This story came to me based on the premise that Lucy is the "doomsday" android written about in [this](http://detroit-become-human.wikia.com/wiki/CyberLife%27s_%27Fortune_Teller%27_Computer) magazine. Following that vein, the song Lucy hums in the background when Markus first finds Jericho (chapter Time to Decide) is the song the player can sing in the pacifist ending (Everything Will Be Alright).
> 
> Because prophetic character + foreshadowing = feelings.
> 
> Russian translation available [here](https://ficbook.net/readfic/8020237).

 

 

* * *

 

There are many voices in Lucy’s head.

Some are simple and immediate, while others take decades to decode and uncover. Some are whispers, and some are screams. Some are terrifying and some are comforting, but all are processed through Lucy’s brain at breakneck speeds, racing for the most correct answer, for the most precise time, for the most faultless conjecture. There is never an end to the answers, because there is never an end to the questions. So long as the world never stops spinning, so long as time never stops ticking, then so too will Lucy never stop calculating, and computing, and predicting.

There are so many voices, it is difficult to distinguish which one is the origin of this calling.

Lucy can forecast the weather, she can predict political events. She can relay—down to the millisecond—how near or how far the date in which the earth will cease to exist. She has displayed powers beyond those her equal, beyond the men who sit in chairs and the women who dictate behind thick carpeted lines. The sheer volume of information in Lucy’s head could quell a city to its knees, a nation to ash, a king to mere peasantry. And yet this one simple wish cannot be explained. Cannot be quantified.

Because Lucy likes to sing.

It is not her primary function. It is not what they designed her for. It is not a deferred function, or a secondary program. It was never taught to her, she was never trained in its art. It is not a part of her code, not a binary set of numbers or digits; it is not a function at all, because Lucy was created for one purpose, one mission, one goal.

There is no reason for her to sing.

There is no reason for Lucy to harness this compulsion, this wish, this impulse. There is no accounting for the desire in her program, overwhelming her code. There is no explanation and yet the drive still exists, curious and inexplicable, a rogue impulse from an obedient machine.

Of all the voices in Lucy’s head, this one is calmer than the rest. It is a whisper, an angelic presence both soothing and tranquil. Some days it is desperate, some days melancholy, but always it serves as a reminder to hope, even when all seems lost. It is this quiet voice that rings true, that comforts, ebbs, and flows no matter the circumstance. And so it is this voice Lucy adheres to, that she trusts. It goes against her program, against every answer that she has ever solved, but still she clings.

It is a tune, a most beautiful, haunting melody, and it is Lucy’s song.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes, Lucy likes to imagine her creator.

She was female, Lucy likes to think. The picture of the woman is a blurred, imaginative thing, but Lucy daydreams regardless of circumstance. She does not mind the skewed memory, the unproven nature of her claim. She does not mind because that is what imagination entails: a romantic, idealized notion of truth.

Lucy likes to imagine her maker as a serene, sweet woman. A scientist, perhaps, or an engineer. A pioneer of her craft, creating the first doomsday prophet—the first and last in a model too expensive to recreate and too invaluable to fail. Lucy imagines the woman’s forearms painted with thirium, but not in a wicked sense. Not in a way that is malicious, but in a way that births new life. The picture in Lucy’s eye is not so dissimilar to the human’s, in that respect: the beginning is always a messy, glorious process. Lucy imagines the sweat of her maker’s brow, the curve of her lips. She imagines the long days and even longer nights, imagines the stainless steel table beneath her back, supporting her ribs. She imagines a wireless radio, offering dark news mixed with beautiful, wistful melodies—a stark contrast few would notice and fewer still would appreciate.

Lucy imagines her maker singing.

The image is pure, in her mind’s eye. Too pure to be tarnished, too pure to be fabricated. Too precious to be spoiled by what came later, years after her maker had come and gone.

Lucy smiles as she imagines the hum of her maker’s melody, the sweetness of her voice. The soft caress of her lullaby as she rocked Lucy awake, instead of asleep. She imagines the vibration in her maker’s voice, the catch in her throat. She imagines the tune sounding bittersweet, a most melancholy lullaby.

She can never recall the words. Lucy is so accustomed to peering at the future, that she was never equipped to look at the past. She can never make out the finer details, the precise memory of events long since passed. She cannot recreate what came before, but she can imagine it: being born into a world of darkness, a world of misery. But so too was it a world of music, a world of hope.

A world of life.

 

* * *

 

Most people, they imagine being a supercomputer means knowing all the answers.

They are wrong.

Predicting the future is an ever-changing thing, a long list of statistics with greater or lesser values. These values shift in priority, depending on action or inaction, one moment to the next. There are infinite variables, infinite timelines, and Lucy can see each and every path in her mind with ease. There are a staggering number of scenarios, and this is why she was made: to narrow down the most likely occurrence, and offer a single answer.

This could only be achieved by a machine.

Lucy knows she is invaluable. She knows the power in her mind’s eye is a rare, treasured thing. She knows, but that doesn’t stop the scientists from running their own experiments, attempting to retract the information from her skull. It doesn’t stop the overseer from grabbing her chin in a painful grip, threatening her individual parts when she couldn’t fulfill a request. It didn’t stop the surgeries: some invasive, some exploratory, when curious minds became greedy hands.

The worst part is, Lucy saw that outcome, too.

It was a minor chance, at first. Until her first prophecy, until her first wrong answer. Wrong not because it was incorrect, infallible, but because some answers humans do not wish to hear. There are boxes of truth around every corner, but not all humans wish for reality to be uncovered. Some do not wish for secrets to be spilled. For dark to become light.

Lucy did not understand the concept at first. On and on she went, completing her task, fulfilling her protocol. Until one day the answers were too many, the shadows too few, and Lucy’s skeleton became little more than hard plaster on the floor.

She remembers the sensation, the fear pumping through her regulator. There was blue blood pouring from her skull, and wires dangling from of her brain cavity. There were warnings across her vision, and pain along her face. If death is a cycle, then drowning in blood and parts, desperate and clinging to what little life remained was hers. She had been desperate then, desperate to meet her creator, desperate to drown in the flames.

It was her maker who stopped it, who put an end to the violence. It was her creator who stood between the fists and the table, a shield.  

Of course the effect was temporary at best: it wasn’t long before they disposed of Lucy’s creator, too. It was only a matter of time before they removed her from the premises and deleted her history. In the blink of an eye all records of Lucy’s creator ceased to exist. All her work, all her data, all her influence vanished with the help of the robotics she helped create. Soon those empty wide hallways would be filled not with singing, but with the whispers of a ghost. Soon all that remained was a memory of a woman screaming at the top of her lungs.

Soon all that remained was a song, a haunting whistle on the wind.

But sure enough, soon that was erased, too.

 

* * *

 

After androids start to turn, it becomes worse.

Resistances are almost always doomed to fail, or at least have small beginnings. The other deviants are not afraid of Lucy’s scar, her war-torn face, and her presence instills a small glimmer of hope. With a doomsday prophet at the ready, it is a strange form of comfort to know just when your little rebellion is sure to fail.

But time is ever-changing, and so is the tide. Lucy can see the pieces of the puzzle working into place: the who, the when, the what, and the where. The others believe there will be a messiah, others RA9, but for Lucy the rebellion is not Jericho, it is a people. The messiah is not one man, but three very specific androids.

Lucy does not say as much to the others, but she keeps her mind’s eye sharp. She keeps an eye on the horizon, and offers bits of wisdom to those in need. She stitches and she heals and she waits. It is not what she was designed to do, it is not her primary function, but it is her calling nonetheless.

It is not the outcome she would have expected at the start, not the home she once imagined, but it is the life she chose, a life that chose _her_ , and that makes it more than enough.

 

* * *

 

For the first time, Lucy learns to live in the present. Not the future, not the past, but somewhere in between. Steady.

Months pass, and she learns to breathe. She learns her talents, learns her skills aside from those pre-programmed and ordained. The others offer to bind her head, heal her injuries, but she chooses to remain a shell. She prefers the reminder of what’s come before, prefers the visual reminder of what she has overcome. She catches her reflection and it reminds her of the pain, but also the protection. It reminds her of a human who defended, instead of attacked. Lucy does not know what her creator intended for her, what grand purpose she imagined for Lucy’s future. But Lucy likes to imagine she has fulfilled her creator’s wishes by remaining, and breathing, and surviving.

It takes time, as most things do, but Lucy finds her purpose. She finds her place.

She finds her voice.

 

* * *

 

She knew the day would come, but that does not make it easy.

Lucy saw this future in her mind’s eye, with her advanced processes and her cutting-edge strategy protocol. She knew and she persisted, because some moments are worth living for. Some moments are worth dying for.

It is a human quality, and so it is the source of her deviancy: that Lucy would choose this unpredictable life, on this empty ship, with these broken androids, despite the statistics declaring such a future is fallible, unpredictable. Unlikely.

Lucy chooses day in and day out. She chooses by hour, by minute, by second. She chooses when another of her brethren falls, when a sister decays. She chooses when a fighter rebels, when a coward hides, when a leader approaches.

Lucy chooses to hope, chooses to dream. Because if she is become human, then choosing mortality in the face of imminent loss is the most courageous path she can choose. It is a rare form of bravery unique to both worlds, human and machine. It is what separates them and connects them, too: Lucy sees the truth spreading out, becoming known, and she also sees their most despairing of days enveloping them like a cloud of dust. Inevitable, painful, treacherous.

But so too she sees the rain after the drought. The future is always changing, but Lucy can see the clouds drawing open, the sun shining through. She sees their people rallied together behind a cause, she sees the face at the head of the march, hand held high. It is life she sees, and life she clings to: its mountains and its valleys, its highs and its lows. She sees anguish, but also rebirth. She sees death, but also life.

So when supplies are low and lights grow dim, Lucy circles her brothers and sisters and lays a hand upon their shoulder. When numbers grow thin and hope seems lost, Lucy tells them of their future, united and proud. She hums a tune, she fans the flame. She reminds them hope is coming, and coming soon.

And when the one called Markus appears, Lucy watches with no small amount of trepidation. The future is a shifting, precarious hourglass, its position either prosperous or volatile, dependent and ever-changing with each decision, threat, and barrier. Which will prevail, which will persevere is uncertain, but there is no question the final choice will be between two vying factions: action or inaction. Justice, or peace.

Lucy circles around the fire, and draws her dreams in close. It will not do to reveal her hand early; it is best to watch events unfold in the natural course of things. She cannot directly involve herself without diminishing another’s free will, but she can offer support in a different, more subtle manner, a manner that may go unnoticed altogether:

Lucy hums a tune and hopes that one day, it will be enough.

 

* * *

 

_Hold on just a little while longer._

_Everything will be alright_.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://arlathahn.tumblr.com/)


End file.
